“People tell me to look out for him,” Gerringer said, watching as Kernodle worked a row of tomatoes that seemed to stretch to the horizon.

“It’s the other way around. He works my tail off.”

Kernodle, a retired Burlington physician, and Gerringer, retired from Lorillard Tobacco Co. in Greensboro, have known one another for decades. Ask Gerringer and he’ll tell you Kernodle performed a bit of minor surgery on him when he was a teenager.

“People tell me to look out for him,” Gerringer said, watching as Kernodle worked a row of tomatoes that seemed to stretch to the horizon.

“It’s the other way around. He works my tail off.”

Kernodle, a retired Burlington physician, and Gerringer, retired from Lorillard Tobacco Co. in Greensboro, have known one another for decades. Ask Gerringer and he’ll tell you Kernodle performed a bit of minor surgery on him when he was a teenager.

Kernodle has no recollection of such.

Gerringer has a greenhouse behind his residence on Gibsonville-Ossipee Road. He raises plants there before transplanting them to fields, eventually selling the fruits of his labor — tomatoes, corn and a variety of other produce. A sign by the road reads: “Bruce’s Greenhouse.”

Kernodle used to buy plants from Gerringer, back when the good doctor tended a field not far from the banks of the Haw River near Western Alamance High School. But the family plot was sold, so Gerringer gave Kernodle a shout.

“I said, ‘Come work with me,’ ” Gerringer said.

Kernodle obliged. That was eight years ago. The pair has toiled together ever since — tending a 4-acre plot on which they raise tomatoes, corn, watermelons and cantaloupes.

They’ve become good pals — talking and joking as they work. Grumpy old men? Not these guys.

“Aren’t they the cutest things?” asked Gerringer’s daughter, Tina Butler, as she stopped to check on the pair on a recent weekday morning.

In the summer, often under an unforgiving sun that would wilt men half their ages, Kernodle and Gerringer work as much as eight hours a day. They both wear straw hats. They both sweat. They both love it.

“Doc, he’s a good guy, he’s something,” Gerringer said. “He’s amazing to be going like he is at almost 96.”

Kernodle noted Gerringer is more experienced at working fields than he, with at least 50 years of farming under his belt.

“I taught him a few things,” Kernodle said, “Not a whole lot. Bruce is just nice enough to let me come out here.”

He paused before continuing, “All I do is provide a little labor.”

The one farming implement he contributes, Kernodle said, is a hoe he carries back and forth from his home in Burlington. The hoe once had a square end. It’s now angled, worn away by years of Kernodle digging with it.

Before summer is through, Kernodle and Gerringer will have planted and raised more than 1,000 tomato plants. They put 300 plants in the ground just last week — varieties like German Johnsons, Pink Girls and Supersteaks.

Four of the 100-foot long tomato beds the pair tend belong to Gerringer. The tomatoes produced from the remaining three rows are Kernodle’s — for him to do with as he pleases.

Early tomatoes are beginning to ripen — their green hue giving way to red. It’s a process that’ll continue until first frost.

Gerringer and his family — his eight grandchildren help at times — sell the tomatoes and other produce from a stand beside the house. A goodly amount goes for free.

“Bruce gives away more than he sells,” is the way Kernodle put it.

In a like sense, when his tomatoes ripen, Kernodle hauls them to town where he gives them to any number of friends and acquaintances. Some go to Kernodle Clinic, the medical facility that Kernodle and his brothers — Donald, Dwight, Harold and Wallace, all doctors — founded in 1950.

Some go to Duke Hospital and the athletic department at nearby Duke University. Kernodle, a graduate of the university’s school of medicine, is a longtime friend of Tom Butters, the athletic director. He’s also been delivering tomatoes to Mike Krzyzewski, the school’s basketball coach, for 25 years and has more recently added football coach David Cutcliffe to his list of recipients.

“It’s just a good thing to do, I enjoy it,” Kernodle said. “It ain’t all about money.”

Gerringer retired from Lorillard in 1996. Kernodle got out of the doctoring business in 1984. For decades he was a general surgeon, one of the few in the area.

“We were trained to do it all,” Kernodle said. “Today, they specialize.”

Both men remain remarkably healthy. Gerringer said he had a pacemaker implanted years ago, but said it’s a rare day that he doesn’t get out of bed feeling well.

Kernodle said the only medication he takes is a daily aspirin. Push him a bit and he’ll admit to tears in both his rotator cuffs that limit his ability to raise his arms above his head.

“But I get along pretty well,” he said. “I keep kicking.”

In addition to working with Gerringer, Kernodle raises another 100 or so tomato plants in a garden that belongs to Charlie Waddell on May Drive. Come fall, it’ll be the 64th year Kernodle has worked as a team physician at Williams High School.

In the winter, when he’s not tending his crops, Kernodle walks three miles a day.

“I’ve got to stay in shape so I can get out here and farm with Bruce,” Kernodle quipped.

How long they continue what they’re doing is anyone’s guess — as long as their health allows, both Kernodle and Gerringer agree. It keeps them going, they said, keeps them feeling younger than their ages.

Besides, the pair noted, they’re just small cogs in the wheel of life.

“It’s amazing what Mother Nature can produce,” Kernodle said. “We just help along the way.”